Laptops come in different sizes and prices. There are many things to keep in mind before purchasing a laptop that suits you. Here is a list of items to keep in mind before purchasing a laptop.
Budget
Before deciding the types of laptop you are planning to purchase always know your budget. Depending on your budget you may be limited to certain specifications. You may be able to purchase different sized laptop but the internals depend on your budget.
Laptop size
This is an important factor as it affects your mobility. If you are a traveller and require something light and easy to carry around it is best to pick a laptop that is 13.3 inches or smaller. Most laptops bigger than that would be quite difficult to carry plus 13.3 inches is the sweet spot for most ultrabooks. If you are going to stay in a fixed place or tend to move around only a little it is best to go with a laptop that is bigger than 13.3 inches because you then have a bigger screen and most laptops that are 15 inches and above use more powerful processors than their smaller screened counterparts.
Battery Life
This too works similarly to the above scenario. If you travel or move around much you need a laptop with a good battery life. Aim at least above 5 to 6 hours in moderate to heavy use. If you not likely to move around it alright to get a laptop with a little battery life and bigger laptops may have a higher power requirement due to more powerful internals.
Screen Resolution
Usually the sharper the display the better but the higher the resolution so is the price. High resolution display means you would get sharper text and clear video. Further lowers resolution makes content blurrier. Resolution of the display may depend on your budget but now most low end laptops come with 1080p displays as well. Another important thing to note is that a lower resolution display will look bad on a 17 inch screen than a 17 inch screen therefore the bigger the screen the higher the resolution is the way to go.
Processor and Graphic card
Processors come in different configurations. It is better to buy a midrange processor than a very powerful one that is over kill or a weak one that is not enough. Further processors are also rated for their power usage so look for one that would suit your needs.
Graphic cards are not that important unless your gaming, graphic designing or video editing and there are many graphic cards to choose from depending on your gaming, graphic designing or video editing needs.
Note that hard drives do affect speeds and that HDD’s are slower and SSD’s are fast. Also HDD’s are cheaper and SSD’s are more expensive. If Space does not matter much you can use a lower capacity SSD to make your system faster. If space is a priority HDD would be the best due to lower costs. cloud service providers is another option if you need storage synced across all your devices and protection from data loss or corruption.
OS
The operating system is also important depending on what you do. Most users tend to purchase windows laptop due to its support with many applications and user friendly UI. Mac OS is also user friendly and very popular but the only drawback being is that Mac OS only come pre-installed with MacBook’s and the selection is limited and expensive. A cheap option where processor and storage won’t matter as much would be Chrome OS which is an internet based OS. Chrome OS is best if you are constantly connected to the internet and don’t require much space which currently not practical to most people. Linux is available for many laptops and it is an open source system with high customisability but with limited support from 3rd party developers when compared to Windows.
Further there are differences between business laptops and other laptops. Business laptops have few features not available on other laptops. If you purchase a business laptop, in most cases you may need to handover the laptop to the managed IT services to make your laptop secured and configured.